My First Christmas

I just got back from my second major trip to visit family (the first was for Thanksgiving). It was part of my first Christmas celebration. A couple days before Christmas, Mom made some yummy looking things called cookies--I am told they tasted good too. The day before Christmas a lot of people came over to our house, and Mom & Dad cooked some more yummy-smelling food.



I got to hang out with my new friend Josiah--it was fun to have someone to play with in my fort, although he doesn't do much playing yet. I did try to help him figure out how to use his arm, and everyone thought it was soooo cute because I was holding his hand...I dont' know what the big deal was. That night we all went to church, where there was lots of pretty music and a guy up front talking. In a couple years I'll learn what that's all about. It must be important, because we went to church the next morning too, and heard about a little baby who was born in a barn but would grow up to save everyone.

After church we packed up and took a long car ride. When I woke up Grandma, Grandpa, and Great-Grandma Reichardt were there, as well as Aunt Becky and Uncle Matt. They all had a nice meal, and then Grandma started handing out boxes that were wrapped up in bright paper. She gave a couple to me, and Becky helped me rip off the paper (I don't know why you would want to ruin a perfectly good bright-colored box...). But there was some pretty neat stuff inside too. We went to a couple other places with lots of people who held me the whole time, so I was happy.


Then we went for another long car ride and I saw Grandma and Grandpa Konop again. There was more food and more presents, and lots of hugs and kisses. Especially from my cousin Jada :) I got a new toy with fishes that I can hit (I love things that hang in front of me!)

You will have to check out our photo album for more pictures from my first Christmas. I hope you all had a great Christmas too, and a Happy New Year!

-Ruthie

Merry Christmas!

First Giggle!

...actually, the first time I giggled was last week Wednesday when mom and I were visiting Emily. I tried out Josiah's swing (which he is borrowing from Sam), and there are three bears that hang above the seat. Something about it just struck me as hillarious. And to my surprise, and mom's amazement, this strange noise came out of my mouth. I later learned that it is called 'laughing' or 'giggling'. Today after mom finished changing my diaper, she was making silly noises at me like usual. I found this one in particular to be funny, so I giggled again! Adults seem to really like when I giggle, so here you go--Enjoy! :)

-ruth

Updates

I promised updates on the Ebelings and my play date, so here they are:

Josiah Jonathan Ebeling was born early this morning, at 4:20 a.m. , after quite a long labor (at least compared to mine!). He is 8 lb. 1 oz. and 22 inches long (Ruth was just 22 in. at her 2-month checkup!). Everyone is doing well. Congratulations to the new mommy and daddy! We can't wait to meet Josiah. We had hoped to go visit today, but with the 13+ inches of snow we got last night, and a broken plow, we couldn't get a vehicle out of our unplowed alley :( You can see some pictures on Diana's blog. I'll post some here as soon as we get to see the little guy.

The visit to the Rose's went well. Gabe slept most of the time, and Ruthie took a little nap also. So there wasn't much interaction between the babies. Gabe is about 6 weeks old (about 5 weeks younger than Ruth). It was interesting to see how much difference even a month can make at this age. Since Gabe was sleeping in his swing, Ruth got to play with his toys without competition. She really liked his bouncy seat and the animals that hung from it. Gabe's dad, Eric, thinks Ruth would make a good boxer :)

Since it is no fun to leave a post without including a picture...here is one of Ruth enjoying tummy time!

Chillin' with dad

I don't get to spend a lot of time with Daddy, since he has to work all day :( So when he is home, I like to hang out with him a lot.

Yesterday Mom and I were "mall walkers" with our very pregnant friend Emily. We went to Mayfair and just walked up and down all the corridors and in the big department stores. Em has been doing this regularly--she is such a champ! AND she went into labor this morning!! :) I can't wait to meet my new little friend!

I am going to hang out with my other new friend, Gabe, this afternoon. I love having all these buddies--even though they are all boys...
I'll let you know how my play date goes, and update you on Jon, Em, and Baby Ebeling!

-ruth

More new friends!

This weekend I had staring contests with the fuzzy lamb in my crib, and with Scoopie the ice cream cone, who was hanging in my fort. I am still the champ! :)
-r

My Friend, the Elephant

I have been getting much better aquainted with my toys lately. Especially the three elephants that live in my Pack'n'Play. I talk to them a lot, and sometimes even yell at them. But they never say anything back... I also have fun hitting the dangling toys--they at least make noise!

Sucking my Thumb

I've been busy trying to suck my thumb again today. I haven't quite figured out how to stick my thumb out from the rest of my fist. So I've been doing a lot of licking my fingers, and scratching myself once or twice with my sharp fingernails :(. I happened to get my thumb in my mouth in this video--taken just three days after I was born (I was so little!!). I've only found it a couple times since then. I better go take a nap so I can work on it some more this afternoon!
-ruth

2 months old

I had my 2-month check-up yesterday. I weighed in at 11 lb. 11 oz. and measured 22 inches. I also got my first round of shots :( I screamed when I was getting them, but as soon as I got in the car I was dozing off, and I slept a lot the rest of the day.

Ruth: The Early Months

This is a from a series of photo shoots that Emily that shows the progression of my pregnancy from month 2 or 3 until Ruthie was born. Thanks, Em!!
I will put a few others in the photo albums soon.

-kt

p.s. there is a new album of our pictures from Thanksgiving week :)

Playing

Finally got a decent video of Ruthie playing in her 'fort' :)

cute!

Look how strong I am when I do my tummy time on a pillow! In the evenings I love to look around and climb over pillows or mom & dad's legs.

I also love seeing new places and people. The last two days I went to some new places and was content to just look around for about half an hour before I realized I wasn't being held.

I will be gone for over a week visiting grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I can't wait to see/meet all of them :). So because of that, I probably won't be doing much blogging for the next week or so (especially since both sets of grandparents have dial-up!). But you can look forward to lots more pictures after we get back.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!

-ruth

Mood swings

Every day I go back and forth from being incredibly happy and smiley to thinking the world is going to end if I don't get picked up. Here are a couple examples: in the first picture I am playing happily with mommy, and in the second I am screaming so hard I can't even open my eyes! Maybe I'm so upset because someone put me next to that giant giraffe head. It is actually part of the awesome quilt that Grandma R. made for me. You can see a couple more pictures of the quilt in my photo album.
-r

Hiccup!

This video is from when I was much younger. But I still have the same hiccup problems now as I did back then. I usually get the hiccups about 3 times a day, and they last for 10-15 minutes. It's really starting to get annoying! (sorry about the video quality...but it is still cute :)

New accomplishments

A couple things I have gotten much better at in the last week or so: 1-smiling even when I don't have gas; 2-making eye contact; 3-playing by myself; 4-making non-crying noises.

Check out the new pictures in the November album :)
-Ruth

all tuckered out

Whew! There's a lot of work to do around here. With all my eating, burping, pooping, and 'talking' (some might call it screaming...) I am just so tired at the end of the day. And then mom expects me to help fold the laundry! As you can see, I didn't get too much folding done. The big pile of warm clothes was just too much to resist :)
-ruth

Our Family

As promised, here is one of our brand new family photos. It was taken by Em on Thursday--isn't it awesome?
OK, gotta go. Just wanted to share that with everyone :)

Bath Time!

I took my first 'real' bath last night. As you can see, I didn't quite know what to think of it at first. After a bit of screaming, I relaxed and almost enjoyed sitting in the warm water. It sure is better than those sponge baths I used to get! But I'm not too sure about that big yellow duck that was swimming in there with me--it's almost as big as my head!

I had to get all cleaned up because today I am getting my pictures taken by my good friend Emily :) I will be sure to share those photos as soon as I get them. And by the way, today is my 1-month birthday! :)

Check this out

Synod website lists some of the sermons from a few campus ministries. Here is one of my favorites from True North in MN.
http://www.wels.net/cgi-bin/site.pl?2617&collectionID=876&contentID=47361&shortcutID=17758

Soooooo Big!

Well, I had my Doctor's appointment today. I am completely healthy, and weighed in at a whopping 8 pounds, 9 ounces! That means I have gained 1 lb. 10 oz. in the last two weeks. For those of you without newborns, the doctors look for the babies to gain about an ounce a day--I gained 26 ounces in 14 days!! Wow, mom must be feeding me well (and I do eat 9-10 meals a day...).

The doctor enjoyed my festive outfit today. It also happens to be one of dad's favorites :) Also, a great big "Happy Birthday" to Aunt Becky, who is coming to visit on Friday!!

Belly Button!

I know it's been awhile since I posted anything. But I've been busy growing a belly button! Well, actually I recently lost the last bit of my former feeding device. It sure is nice to have that yucky hard black thing off of my tummy. Mom and dad call the wrinkly little spot where it used to be attached a 'belly button' and keep poking it and saying how cute it is.
In other news, I recently graduated to size 1 diapers. (Thanks go out to my buddy Cole for letting me use his leftover N's, since he grew out of them much faster than me!) I have a Doctor's appointment tomorrow--I'll write again to let you all know how much I've grown in the last 3 weeks :)

The Many Faces of Ruth

One of the things that surprised us about our new little family member was all of the expressions and faces she made right from the beginning. She really is a little person with her own personality! :) Here is just a sampling of Ruth's many expressions--peaceful, angry, hungry, tired, smiley... all of them cute :)

New Camera

We splurged on a new digital camera (Nikon D40) last week. It came yesterday and we've already taken well over 100 pictures with it--90% Ruth, 5% mom/dad, 5% other :) Be sure to check out all our new pictures!

Settling In

I think I'm getting the hang of this 'being outside the womb' business. I eat pretty regularly, and even let Mommy and Daddy sleep for a few hours during the night! However, I am in the habit of peeing all over just when Daddy takes off my diaper. Grandma Reichardt showed me lots of baby exercises to do, including tummy time and baby sit-ups. I can already lift my head up when I'm on my tummy and turn it to the other side.

I had my first bath at home the other day. It wasn't as bad as the one at the hospital. I had my first stroller ride around the block today. That was nice and relaxing, and I fell right asleep. I also had a big day yesterday--I was baptized! (more later) Well, I should get going. I have to get some rest before lunch.

Hello World!

Hi! My name is Ruth Katherine Konop, and the strangest thing happened to me the other day. My nice dark, warm home had been getting smaller and smaller for awhile, and late Monday night it started squishing me a lot. Before I knew it, I was on the ride of my life! It ended on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 at 3:11 a.m. There was a really bright light, cold air, and about 10 big people crowded around me, poking and prodding. Finally someone wrapped me up nice and tight, like my old home, and handed me to two other big people who kept smiling at me. I later learned that the fuzzy one calls himself 'daddy' and the one that gives me food all the time calls herself 'mommy'.
When it was all settled down, they told me I was 6 lb. 12 oz. and 19 inches long. Here is the first picture ever taken of me. (You would be upset too if you went through what I did!). Check out lots more pictures in our Web Albums. I hope to meet you all soon :)

I think it's Triplets

Our friend Emily is a photographer, and she recently got a new lens for her camera. We had some fun trying out different things with it :) There's a couple more pics in our Web Album, but I like this one the best.

Get your Umbrellas!

I'm not exactly sure why they're called "showers", but I have been blessed to have two Baby Showers in the past month. My awesome friends got together to play some silly and informative games, eat good food, enjoy eachothers' company, and shower my (or, more accurately, my baby) with gifts. I guess that's were the "shower" thing comes from...

Diana and Emily thought up a "Literary" baby shower. Diana did tons of research and made up a quiz on children's books and authors. We all had a great time reminiscing about our favorite childhood books. I got lots of amazing books for our daughter--it will be fun to see which one(s) end up being her favorite(s)!

Brooke and Kelly (from work) hosted a "Duckie" themed shower, after I mentioned to Brooke that I thought duckies were really cute for baby stuff :) We played some more traditional games, such as guessing the next line of the nursery rhyme, Baby Gift Bingo, and matching baby names with meanings (Tamara=Palm tree :). My favorite was a game where everyone cut a length of ribbon that they thought would match my belly circumference. A few people were pretty close, but everyone guessed too long! Check out our Web Albums (link on the right) for some pics from the baby shower.

-kt